ABSTRACT
This chapter explores testable hypotheses and empirical uniformities of group violence that have been put forward and commented upon at various times. It links up these hypotheses and uniformities in more systematic fashion than is presently available. Groups that are economically at the margins of subsistence will react at once to a short-term increase in food prices or a diminished food supply. Such shortages and price increases, often localized, occur frequently after a time of crop failures or of war. For the purpose of testing some of the above hypotheses, a list of major strikes from the index of Commons and other sources for the period 1870 to 1930 in the coal, railroad, iron and steel, mining and cotton and silk industries was compiled. While violence and fatalities occurred frequently in major strikes despite a high proportion of female labor, overall casualties tended to be very low.
